


A New Tomorrow

by Requiem



Category: A Knight's Tale (2001)
Genre: Alternate universe - role swap, Established Relationship, F/F, can be read as pre-Christiana/Jocelyn/Kate if you want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:54:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28127946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Requiem/pseuds/Requiem
Summary: After Jocelyn's husband Sir Ector dies unexpectedly before the end of a tournament, she takes his place and quickly acquires a taste for jousting.
Relationships: Christiana/Jocelyn (A Knight's Tale)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 18
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	A New Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Derry Rain (smakibbfb)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smakibbfb/gifts).



> I loved your prompts and your Kate!Ulrich idea, but decided to go with Jocelyn!Ulrich in the end. I hope you like it!

Sir Ector might once have been a knight of some renown, but these days, he was little more than a drunken old man, barely able to find the stirrups with both feet. The only tournaments he could win were small provincial things of little consequence and even less prize money, and any coin that Jocelyn wasn't able to hide away was quickly squandered on cheap ale. The squires had long since been driven away by the poor food and lodgings they'd been provided with while having to bear the brunt of the work, and the only ones left now were Jocelyn and her handmaiden Christiana, kept afloat by the weaving work they did on the side.

Actually, it might just be the two of them left now, Jocelyn thought as she looked at the slumped-over form of her husband in the ditch.

"Ector," she said again, even louder than the previous three times. "Wake _up_." For good measure, with Christiana acting as lookout to make sure nobody saw, Jocelyn kicked her husband in the ribs. He keeled over bonelessly and made no move to get up. With a sigh, Jocelyn hitched her skirt and crouched down to feel for a pulse. Nothing.

"I can't _believe_ it!" she exclaimed. "Of all the times for the man to expire, he does it _now_? The match is about to begin!"

"The official approaches," Christiana whispered. "What do we tell him?"

The right thing to do would be to tell the truth and use what little of their money they had left to return to Jocelyn's parents in England, but Jocelyn wasn't a quitter, or she would have left long ago with the squires.

"Say nothing," she said to Christiana as the official brought his horse to a stop.

"Milady," he said. "Sir Ector must report at once or forfeit the match."

"He'll be along shortly," Jocelyn said with a smile.

The official nodded and returned to the tournament grounds.

"I thought you said—" Christiana began.

"Help me get his armour on." Jocelyn scrambled back down into the ditch and pulled off Ector's helmet, then began undoing the ties on his breastplate.

"You cannot be serious," Christiana said even as she helped Jocelyn to tug off Ector's boots.

"He's three points ahead; all I need to do is stay on the horse." The breastplate removed, Jocelyn began pulling at Ector's tunic too—she would need the extra padding to make the armour stay in place, and naked in a ditch was exactly the kind of end she had envisioned for him.

"And if someone discovers who you are? We could be arrested."

"And if we don't do this, we die penniless and starving on the road between here and London." Jocelyn exchanged her skirt for the trousers, belting them tightly around her waist and folding and tucking the excess ends into Ector's boots. Even with two pairs of socks on, they were still too loose, but on a horse, it wouldn't matter too much. "Here, help me tie my hair up."

Once all the pieces of armour were on, Jocelyn felt like a child playing dress-up with her father's clothes, like anyone would be able to glance at her and immediately recognise her to be an imposter, but Christiana smiled winningly at her and said, "You look just like a real knight," and Jocelyn's worries melted away.

The horse was not so convinced. "Arundel, it's just me," Jocelyn said when the mare sniffed her suspiciously. "Don't let me down now, you've been doing this all your life."

Jocelyn knew well the basics of jousting—when the squires had absconded, Ector had been left with no one to train against except his wife and her handmaiden—and in theory, it seemed so simple: sit on the horse, aim the tip of the lance at your opponent, and don't get knocked off. In practice, everything looked different when you were actually sitting on a horse and carrying a lance rather than standing on the ground holding a target.

The tip of the lance drooped the moment Jocelyn lowered it, and she had to squeeze it tight against the side of her chest to keep from dropping it. She doubted she would hit anything, but that wasn't the point—all she had to do was stay on the horse. And she'd had plenty of practice learning how to brace herself while holding Ector's targets steady for him.

The flag was raised, the horses spurred, and Jocelyn found herself barrelling down the field with alarming speed; Arundel was doing her job, so it was now time for Jocelyn to do hers. She held on tight with her shins and thighs, and leaned in to meet her opponent's lance. A split second before it connected, she realised it was aimed at her head and not her shoulder, as she'd expected, and she instinctively squeezed her eyes shut.

The darkness seemed to turn white as her ears rang with the force of the blow, and she felt herself tilting in the saddle, but her legs remained clamped around Arundel's sides, and she was able to wrench herself back up using the pommel and reins. The ringing in her ears was gradually replaced by cheering, and the realisation slowly dawned on her that she'd won the tournament.

"You did it!" Christiana appeared at Jocelyn's right knee, and took the reins to steer her off the field. "Are you alright? You took quite the blow."

"I think my head's still spinning," Jocelyn replied, "but it's quite fortunate, really; now I have a reason not to remove my helmet."

Everyone seemed to accept it, and 'Sir Ector' was awarded the golden feather without any fuss.

Once back in her usual clothes, Jocelyn was able to haggle with the merchant for fifteen florins.

"We shan't die penniless and starving on the road to London now," Christiana said. "All thanks to you."

Jocelyn shook the coins in her hand, listening to the way they jingled. It was so strange to think that Ector wouldn't be getting his hands on any of these coins. So…freeing.

"What if…" Jocelyn shook the coins a little more, a thought half-forming in her mind. "What if we kept this up?"

"This?" Christiana looked Jocelyn up and down. "You…want to keep jousting?"

"I can do it. I know I can." Waiting at the edge of the field, mounted and with the lance in hand, had felt so _right_. Her technique left much to be desired, Jocelyn knew, but that could be solved with more training and better-fitting equipment. "We could bring riches and glory to _ourselves_." Jocelyn seized Christiana's hand and let the coins fall into her palm. "No more relying on bygone knights and useless husbands. No one trying to tear us apart." Alone at the edge of the forest and hidden behind the wagon, Jocelyn allowed herself to press a small kiss to Christiana's lips.

"But women are not permitted to be knights," Christiana said. She didn't pull away though, so Jocelyn continued laying out her plan.

"We will have to masquerade as men. It will be difficult. But I know we can do this, and I am willing to try. Will you do this with me? Please?"

"I once swore to always be by your side." There was a soft smile on Christiana's lips as she moved into the space between herself and Jocelyn. "And I always will be, my love. If you say we can do this, then I believe it."

They cut each other's hair in a secluded grove by a stream. Jocelyn gave Christiana a boyish cut that hung around her ears, while Christiana, at Jocelyn's urging, reluctantly cut Jocelyn's hair high up off her ears and neck. At least it had the effect of making her unrecognisable, even to herself the first few times she saw her reflection in the stream.

Next, they tailored Ector's old clothes to fit Jocelyn, and turned their skirts into loose trousers and dresses into tunics. There was little they could do about the ill-fitting armour with neither of them skilled in smithing, but while training, Jocelyn found that wearing multiple layers of clothing padded it out enough that it didn't hinder her movements too much.

She couldn't continue to compete under her husband's name lest they run into someone who had known him or Jocelyn, so she and Christiana came up with something new, something bizarre and foreign that no one would be able to definitively say didn't exist: Sir Ulrich von Liechtenstein of Gelderland.

They spent the last of their coin on materials for drawing up patents of nobility, using Ector's as a guideline. And for their emblem, three phoenixes: one for Jocelyn, one for Christiana, and one for their new life together.

-

"This isn't going to work," Jocelyn said as she tried to massage her shoulder through the armour. "I need armour I can move in, otherwise I'm just a sitting target." It'd been so much easier in training when the targets hadn't struck back; Jocelyn was starting to see why Ector had thought so highly of himself off the field.

"You almost had him," Christiana offered.

"Your optimism brings me joy as always, but almosts don't put food on the table and coin in our pockets. I need to _win_."

"But the armourers…"

All it would take was the tiniest slip-up, and their secret would be out.

"I know. I'll think of something."

It was Christiana who found the solution to their problems the next morning. Jocelyn was in their tent doing some weaving to calm her mind when Christiana burst through the opening. Jocelyn had her knife halfway up before she realised who it was.

Unperturbed, Christiana laid down on the bedroll next to Jocelyn. "I found someone," she whispered, eyes glittering with excitement. "To help with your armour problem, that is. There's a farris. Kate."

"She knows how to refit armour?"

"She says she does."

Jocelyn sighed and ran her hand down Christiana's side. "I suppose we can't afford to be picky."

Rather than risking everything at once though, Jocelyn first had Christiana take the breastplate for the crack in the front to be mended. It'd been like that for several matches now and didn't directly affect her jousting, but Christiana had been worried that all it would take was one blow in the right place to cause a major injury, and had been more than happy to take it for repairs.

When Christiana picked up the breastplace from the farris later that afternoon, Jocelyn had to admit that Kate had done a spectacular job with it. The place where the crack had been seemed even stronger than it had been before, if possible.

With her armour repaired and Christiana no longer throwing her concerned looks before the start of each round, Jocelyn flew through the next set of matches with greater confidence than ever. After each round, as she was walking Arundel back to the other side of the field, she noticed a woman watching her closely—a rather plain-looking dark-haired woman wearing a blacksmith's apron. At one point, their eyes met briefly. At the end of the next round, the woman was gone.

Jocelyn won the tournament, and in the heat of her victory, she forgot all about the woman who'd been watching her from the stands. She and Christiana spent the night celebrating in the privacy of their tent while the other champions attended the celebratory banquet.

The next morning, as they were packing the wagon, Jocelyn saw the woman from the stands again.

"Sir Ulrich!" She waved at Jocelyn over the heads of a passing procession of a knight, his squires, and other retainers.

"Kate," Christiana said with a smile as she emerged from the tent with an armful of blankets.

So this was Kate the farris who'd done such a remarkable job with Jocelyn's armour.

"That armour you wear—it wasn't made for you, was it?" Kate said before Jocelyn could relay her compliments.

"What of it?" Jocelyn bristled, readying herself for a fight.

She didn't expect for Kate's eyes to light up and for her to say earnestly, "I could make you such armour you wouldn't even know you wore it."

"And what would this cost me?" Jocelyn had managed enough of Ector's business to know that such offers did not come for free.

"Take me with you. At least as far as Paris."

"What awaits you in Paris?" Christiana asked.

"A new life. A better life."

Jocelyn could relate to that. And with the promise of armour that actually fit, coupled with Christiana's pleading look to let Kate travel with them, who was she to say no?

"You won't regret this, I promise," Kate said with a broad smile when Jocelyn agreed to her proposal. "Let me get my things."

-

It was clear from the beginning that Kate did not believe Jocelyn was who she said she was, but she kept up the ruse, referring to Jocelyn as 'Sir Ulrich' with the smallest quirk of her lips every time.

"Amusing as it is to watch the two of you dance around each other, I think you should just tell her," Christiana murmured into Jocelyn's ear when they had a rare quiet moment together one evening, bathing in the stream while Kate watched over the camp; the biggest drawback of having Kate around was having to go back to hiding their relationship.

"You're sure we can trust her?" Jocelyn asked.

"I think she knew from the moment I met her, and that it discredits her intelligence and perception to keep pretending otherwise."

Christiana had always been an excellent judge of character, always the one to watch quietly, to notice the things that people tried to keep hidden. If she trusted Kate, then so did Jocelyn.

Jocelyn waited until breakfast the next day when the three of them were huddled around a small fire trying to ward off the morning chill; if Kate wanted to leave, or if Christiana's appraisal of her was inaccurate, they would not be left floundering in the darkness. Paris was only a day away too, and they could easily go their separate ways from here.

"We have something to tell you," Jocelyn began.

Kate gave her a look that was somehow questioning and knowing at the same time.

Jocelyn took a deep breath to steel her nerves. "My name is not Ulrich, and this is not my squire Christian."

"Let me guess: you're not from Gelderland either." Kate raised her eyebrows.

"No, we're from England," Christiana said.

"My name is Jocelyn, and this was my handmaiden Christiana. All this began when my husband died…"

Kate listened raptly to Jocelyn's story, not saying a word until she finished.

"Why jousting?" Kate finally asked. "There are a number of other ways to earn money that are easier to learn and don't involve as much risk."

"But how many of them hold a candle to the calibre of the joust? This isn't about money. It's about making something of yourself."

Kate grinned. "Aye, that it is. My husband died too, you know? When I took over his forge, I thought, 'Kate, this is your chance to be someone'. And God knows I worked hard, but no one ever gave me a chance. Not until you." She looked first at Jocelyn then Christiana.

"Then we are all here because we have been given another chance," Christiana said.

"I _will_ make you the finest armour you have ever laid eyes on," Kate said to Jocelyn. "Once we get to Paris, I swear it. You will win tournaments with such grace and ease that the other knights will clamour for the name of your blacksmith."

That made Jocelyn laugh. "And I'll direct them to your shop in Paris, shall I?"

"It's as good a place to settle down as any other."

"Is it, now?" Jocelyn cast a glance at Christiana, who had a slowly-growing smile on her face.

"I've heard the same," she said.

"Well, then." Jocelyn wished they had some wine, but all they had on hand was cheap beer from the last village. She refilled everyone's cups and raised hers in a toast.

"To a long partnership," Christiana said as Jocelyn searched for the right words to say.

"To getting the recognition we deserve," Kate added.

"To a new tomorrow," Jocelyn finished.

They clinked their cups and drank; whatever tomorrow brought, Jocelyn was sure they would be able to face it together.


End file.
